BEYOND THE COLORS OF DARKNESS by Brian Stableford

Author:Brian Stableford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

trumpets. There are birds perching on the trellises, moving back and forth.”

“And did you see any of these flowers seize and devour an unfortunate bird?” asked Philippe.

“No, I didn’t,” admitted Armand. “I haven’t seen flowers of that kind before, though, and I’m sure that there’s something strange about them.”

“Oh, Armand!” said his friend sadly. “There are a hundred fine gardens in Fourquevaux, every one of which contains flowers whose proud owners cultivate them because they are unique. You now know the solution to the mystery of the high, dense hedge: it is to prevent squalls of wind from blowing down the free-standing trellises. What you have seen is, by your own account, quite ordinary; there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that what still remains hidden from you must be something strange and sinister.”

“The birds are ordinary,” Armand, admitted, “but I cannot help wondering whether the trellises might have been designed to provide perches for them as well as climbing-frames for the flower-bearing stems. I have never seen such flowers before, nor have I seen the kind of structure one which they are mounted. There is something odd about Gaspard Grouiller’s garden.”

“You have said yourself that the garden gets too little sun,”

Philippe insisted. “If the hedge has to be uncommonly tall to protect the garden from the winds to which the house is unusually exposed, the structures might also require to be uncommonly tall, not only to increase their ration of sunlight but in order to display the flowers to their proud cultivator.”

If this speech had been intended to set Armand’s mind at rest, it failed miserably. Armand was no longer listening to his friend; instead, he was standing by his window looking out in the direction of Gaspard Grouiller’s house.

Philippe went to stand beside his friend, in order to see what he was looking at, and observed that the shutters of the only window in the third story of the tower-house that faced the Kardan house—

which had been closed only a few minutes before, as they usually were—had now been thrown back. There was a man standing at the 96 * BEYOND THE COLORS OF DARKNESS, BY BRIAN STABLEFORD

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